


Lost

by Sciatic_Nerd



Series: The Bastard Prince [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Nyx-centric, people die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 13:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12013635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sciatic_Nerd/pseuds/Sciatic_Nerd
Summary: When Nyx turned six it was like the Gods all came together and decided that it was time to ruin his life, which was already pretty bad to begin with, but maybe, just maybe, the guy in the fancy suit could make everything alright again.





	Lost

The metal ships were roaring overhead again.

They flew over the town every other day now. But this time it was different. Because this time the big metal ships didn’t just continue flying overhead, they came down to the ground making the wind roar and the trees bend and then the sound of marching boots came. They were louder on the metal of the ships than on the soft earth of their homeland but they were loud enough to make the whole village cower and close there eyes.

Nyx was terrified, everyone knew the army only ever came to kill, but there was nothing left of their small town other than women and children. The closest they had to a man here was Eris, and he was sixteen.

“Nyx, take your sister, hide under the floorboards. Don’t make a sound. Not for anything,” his mother instructed sharply pulling up the loose floorboards and ushering them down. There was no time to run and if the Nifs didn’t find someone here it would have been suspicious. Suspicious enough to burn the whole house down. It had happened before in the next village over, they had heard, to the Valdis’. The mother and her three daughters had been burned alive before anyone could help them.

Nyx clutched his sister tightly to his chest, shuffling over to the wall of the hidden chamber, peaking out into the street between the wooden slats. He tried not to flinch as he heard the front door burst open and someone drag his mother out of the house onto the street, where he could see what was going on.

There was a fat man, dressed in silks with a multitude of badges attached to them and a self-important expression painted on his face, “bring forward the accused,” he cried out, pompously.

There were three other women who were standing with his mother, one was sobbing over the baby in her arms, the one she hadn’t been able to hide quickly enough, begging that her baby was just that, that he hadn’t committed any crimes and begging for mercy, not for her, just for him. She shut her mouth when one of the metal henchmen slapped her across the face, forcing her to the ground.

“Marya Fulco!”

One of the older women, known as Old Marya around the village, stepped forward, “yes that’s me you puffed up oaf.”

The man looked a little floored for a second but recovered, “Irma Leifir, Asteria Ulric, Liza Ragnar. You are all accused of consorting with known rebels and dissidents, treasonous individuals. The sentence for this crime is death, how do you plead.”

And honestly it wasn’t a question. Something Marya Fulco had also picked up on.

“It doesn’t matter which was we plead, does it. You’ll kill us all just the same.”

The man straightened up and narrowed his eyes, “you shouldn’t speak that way to your betters, woman. How do you plead.”

Marya smiled sweetly and just for kicks said, “innocent.”

It was then that his mother, who hadn’t put up a fight thus far cleared her throat, “my Lord, my name is Astria Ulfur. I have the papers here to prove it.”

The man smiled oily, “see this is how a woman should speak to her betters. If you could show me these papers?”

Half a beat later she proffered them up to him and he spent several moments looking them over.

“Of course a woman should also know not to lie to them either. Kill them both.”

Nyx bit into the meat of his hand and tried to choke back on the screams he could feel in the back of his throat, as the two robots flanking the man raised their guns and both fired a single shot. 

Nyx blinked. In one moment everything was fine in the next both his mother and Old Marya, their heads a bloody mess and it was making him feel sick.

“Now, Ulric was said to have two children. Where are they?”

Liza, a no nonsense woman, around the same age as his mother, stepped forward and continued the lie, saying matter of factly “well, now I’m sure no-one will ever know.”

“What?” the man hissed.

She just shrugged as the other woman, Irma, sobbed, “she came here without them. No-one knows where they are, no-one asked.”

That was a lie, everyone told everyone else, just in case. But Liza wouldn’t tell the truth, it had become a saying everyone lived by in these last few years; dead men tell no tales, even if they weren’t lying in their graves just yet. Especially if it was the Niffs sniffing around for answers. And in Galahd, they were all dead men walking.

The man snarled and stormed back into the ship, and just before he vanished from sight another order came, “kill the other two as well.”

Two seconds later and Nyx, even though he had shut his eyes tight, trying desperately to block out what was happening, heard the sound of gunfire and the sick thump of dead bodies hitting the floor. Then the engines started up again and the nightmare had left, to return another day.

Eris, took a tentative step outside into the streets, hurrying over to Irma’s body and pushing it gently onto its side. He extracted the baby carefully and after a moment clutched it close to his chest, rocking the small bundle as its cries rose up into the air.

Nyx rolled onto his back and breathed deeply, trying to comprehend that his mother was now gone and that he and Selena were orphans. But all he felt was numbness creeping up along his veins.

***************************

Nyx and Selena were alright in the end. Lucis prioritised children when it came to refugee transfers, especially orphans. Until the Lucians had come to take them away they had stayed with a friend of their mother’s who had her own kid his age, Libertus. Nyx had been a little wary, not entirely able to trust that they wouldn’t just vanish from their lives, like mother had, but they were good people, and Selena liked them.

When the Lucians came the three of them had been packed up and sent away, unfortunately to get to the safety that was promised to them they would have to go through the war zone. A place that the Niffs had promised them was even more dangerous that staying in the conquered zones.

They had only sent a team of four to look after them and Nyx, Selena and Libertus were amongst the kids that were going to Lucis with them. Within the group was Irma’s baby and Eris, who had been given a spot so long as he could look after him, and make sure he didn’t cry.

The journey started out well enough. They were all packed in the back of the truck and driven away. Nyx had kept Selena and Libertus close, as they huddled together trying not to be miserable. After the first day they hit the war zone, the soldiers were pushing the truck as fast as they dared and what little conversation could be heard vanished, no-one said anything unable to push words out through the terror.

They had been doing well enough, driving along at a decent pace, picking up a few kids as they went. They were parked in a town when it happened, getting fuel and some more food, nothing fancy just enough to survive. Nyx had snuck out of the truck, promising to get Selena a chocolate bar she had seen in the shop window. Libertus had hissed out something about risks and it not being worth it, but Selena hadn’t smiled properly since mother had been killed and she deserved something nice. So when she had turned the puppy dog eyes on him he had folded like a wet rag.

He snuck out the back when the soldiers were taking a quick lunch break, using a few other trucks as cover so that he could get to the store unnoticed. They weren’t allowed to leave the truck for anything, there was a toilet in the truck and food was handed out twice a day from the door to the drivers section.

He grabbed the first chocolate bar he saw, just a plain one, and went to the shopkeeper, the treat in one hand, the few gil he had managed to scrounge up before they left in the other.

“You sure it was a good idea to leave the truck, kid?” the gruff old man asked, scanning the item, it was king sized, so there was a chance he and Libertus would get some too, if they were lucky.

Nyx shrugged, “my sister wanted it.”

“Two gil.”

Nyx laid the gil on the table when he heard something. He cocked his head.

“Watcha hear kid?”

“It sounds kind of like the flying ships.”

The old man’s eyes widened and he dragged Nyx over the counter, pushing him through a hidden door to an underground cellar, he had opened with a foot.

“Get in there! Now!” he shouted out, pressing a button which sounded out a loud alarm, pushing him further into the underground room as he followed after him. For a few seconds he thought he had imagined it but the next thing he knew the alarms had been drowned out by a deafening roar and the sound of explosions.

“Come on kid,” the man said gently, pulling him away, deeper into the room, “you’ll be safe here. The Niffs don’t bring their robots through here, they just bomb us.”

“What about my sister?” Nyx gasped desperately.

He shrugged, “if you see the truck out there when it’s safe to go out then she didn’t make it. If it isn’t there then she’s probably alright. Either way, there ain’t nothin you can do for her now kid. When we get out of here I’ll set you up with food and a map. Follow the roads and you’ll get to Insomnia eventually.”

Nyx just nodded mutely, “I shouldn’t have left the truck.”

The old man just sighed, “at least you’re alive kid. There’s a chance you’ll see her again.”

A few hours later he ventured out, looking around the burning wasteland the bombs had turned the outpost into. He looked out on the road, there was a burning wreck a few hundred feet down the road.

This time, he didn’t scream.

Nyx set out the next day, with new boots, a backpack full of rations and water that would last him a while and his father’s knives strapped properly to his legs, instead of stuffed haphazardly into his belt as he had had done so before.

He did as the old man told him, travelling alongside the road, not on it, but alongside it. Unfortunately the road was also how Niflheim navigated their ships, and it took a long time before Nyx could make himself continue to walk when he heard them fly overhead instead of freezing and hiding.

They wouldn’t waste a bomb on just him, he had learnt. He had also learnt to sleep during the day, because the daemons only ever came out at night and there weren’t enough havens around for him to sleep at one every night. There were a bunch of military types he had seen on his journey so far, from both sides, but he had stayed away from them, it was far too likely for him to get hurt sniffing around there.

Eventually however his luck had run out.

It had been slow going and while he had run out of food yesterday, the more pressing problem was that he was drinking the last of his water now. In the height of summer, travelling through deserts without water was tantamount to suicide.

Nyx trudged on, thinking to himself. He had three options; go back to one of the outposts he had seen, lay down here and die or move forward and gamble his future on a roll of the dice of the Gods. He thought back to the map he had memorised, there weren’t any more turns, all he needed to do was to follow the road to Lucis, it was still a long way away but he was on the last leg of his journey.

He was a son of Galahd.

He had made it this far, he would be damned if he turned back now.

So he clung tightly to his backpack and marched onwards.

He would make it.

*****************************

Regis was leaning his head out of the car, studiously ignoring Weskham’s overly detailed assessment of the situation they were now in, when he saw it.

“Wait! Stop the car.”

“What-”

“Now Wes!” his tone brooked no objections.

His steward obligingly slammed down on the brakes and once the car was stopped everyone got out. Regis strode hurriedly back up along the side of the road, eyes furiously scanning the area, hoping against hope that he hadn’t seen what he thought he had. Or at the very least that he wasn’t to late to help.

Clarus jogged up behind him, “honestly Reggie, what the hell are you doing?”

“I thought I saw something.”

“Really?” Cid exclaimed, “I don’t know if ya know but we have a schedule to keep!”

“It’s important,” was all he would say in explanation.

He hadn’t imagined it at all, he was there leaning against road rails, filthy, weak and almost unconscious, but there. A child in the middle of a war zone, Gods, he couldn’t have been older than seven. Regis walked briskly over, calling a water bottle from his armiger. He knelt in front of the poor child, “can you hear me?” he got something that could have passed for a nod, so he kept going, “I need you to drink, sip slowly, that’s it,” he smiled, the kid was obviously raised in the desert because he took slow steady sips from the bottle as soon as Regis had held it up to his lips, not even waiting for instructions.

“Far out,” Cid whistled behind him, “a kid?”

“What’s your name?” he asked, popping a hard boiled lolly in the child’s mouth, it was packed with vitamins and minerals held together with a tonne of sugar. A little emergency something their people had come up with so that their people could last longer if they ever found themselves out of rations, and the fact that it had to be sucked on made the body trick itself into thinking it wasn’t as dehydrated as it was.

“Nyx. Ulric,” the child panted taking a few hard sucks on the lolly that had just been placed in his mouth, “who’re you?”

“My name is Regis. Here, you take the bottle, keep drinking till it’s empty then I’ll give you a new one.”

Nyx nodded.

“Astrals,” Clarus swore under his breath, “how old are you kid?”

He frowned as if he wasn’t completely sure, “…six?”

How long had he been trapped in this hell? Regis had tried to ensure that the children at least would be spared from the atrocities that were ravaging their lands, especially since he had taken the throne. But he obviously hadn’t been doing as good a job as had been reported.

“Do you want to come with us? We’ll take you somewhere safe,” Regis offered worriedly.

It was the first time the child showed any sign of wariness, he narrowed his eyes and clutched at the water bottle, “and where is safe?”

“Insomnia,” Regis replied without hesitation.

Nyx blinked, he hadn’t expected that. That city, that word, in his home town you might as well have said heaven, you had a better chance of reaching it. But here was this strange man, dressed in materials he had only seen on the fat man from Nifleheim who had killed his - he didn’t think of that. He didn’t ever think of that. 

He was probably important, but he was kind enough, he had helped. How many Niffs in their fancy ships and suits had flown overhead watching the people beneath them suffer and die, so far beneath them they had hardly been worthy of notice, let alone care.

But Insomnia. The promised land. And he was willing to do almost anything to get there. To go somewhere where the King actually protected his people.

“You promise?”

“Yes, I promise,” Regis smiled, holding out a hand.

Still clutching the water bottle tightly to his chest with one hand, Nyx slowly reached out with the other and took the proffered hand, desperation and hope waring on his face.

The child hadn’t been able to stand and walk on his own. For all that the water and the lollies had breathed a little bit of life back into him he hadn’t regained any real strength so easily. So Regis had picked him up and for all that he didn’t really like it, he couldn’t deny that he needed it.

“It’ll be alright, a bit more water, a good meal and a night’s sleep and you’ll be back on your feet in no time, I know how annoying it is to have to rely on everyone else to ferry you around.” Regis soothed.

“And he should know,” Clarus laughed, “he’s had to do his own fair share of sitting around and waiting to get better.”

“Really?” came a curious croak.

Regis laughed sheepishly and explained, “I come from a long line of people who have disregarded their health to do what they feel is right and necessary. So yes, I have pushed myself hard enough to be confined to rest, on more than one occasion.”

Nyx took another sip from the bottle, and looked up at Regis thoughtfully, “you’re important, aren’t you.”

“What makes you think that?” Regis deflected.

“Your clothes. The way you speak. And stand. And talk.” he continued to tack on the end, finding more and more evidence to back up his conclusion the more he thought about it.

“You’re right,” Regis smiled, “I am quite important in Lucis.”

The other three men all looked at Regis incredulously. Quite important? He had been crowned king a little over a year ago. Could you get more important than the king? They just shook their heads, not saying anything, Regis had always been a little shy about parading his status about. And who knew how the kid would take it. So they just raised an eyebrow at the understatement and left it at that.

“So you live in Insomnia?”

“Yes,” Regis nodded briefly, before turning his attention to sitting the boy down in the car and helping him buckle up.

“I haven’t ever seen a car like this before. It’s so shiny.”

Regis sat down next to him, taking what was usually Clarus' seat, “well, she is my pride and joy.”

When Clarus raised an eyebrow at him Regis just nodded him towards the front, where he usually sat and turned his attention back to the child, making sure he was recovering properly. 

He was a tough little thing, a bottle of water and a few snacks seemed to do him a world of good, he made for an active and attentive little boy, asking Regis all sorts of questions, from if the buttons on his jacket were made with actual gold to how he was seemingly pulling things out of thin air.

He looked thoroughly unimpressed when Regis had winked and said “magic.”

A look that turned into something utterly dumbfounded when Regis had met that looked with a laugh and ruffled his hair, saying, “you may look at me like that, but it’s the honest truth, I swear it.”

Nyx then spent the next five minutes glaring at him and trying to fix his wild, dirty hair before Regis managed to distract him with the fact that they had reached their destination. A Lucian military command centre that looked like any other according to Nyx’s untrained eye.

As they got out Regis took Nyx’s hand and said, “hold on to me, and don’t let go, it isn’t safe.”

“I’m strong!” Nyx scowled in protest.

“I’m sure you are, but there are an awful lot of soldiers here and they’re all a little nervous.”

The frown turned into a curious one, “why are they all so nervous? They’re with all the other soldiers, so they should be alright.”

Regis had opened his mouth to answer when he was interrupted.

“You’re Majesty!” Cor came striding out, “you’ve made it just in time.”

“Thank you, Cor, I’ll be with you in a second.”

“Your Majesty?” Nyx asked doubtfully, “isn’t the king supposed to be an old man?”

“I don’t count as old?” Regis raised an eyebrow, not able to help deflecting. That memory, for all that it was a year old and that his father had been old and dying for a long time, was one that was still too painful to resist an attempt at evasion.

He had argued continuously with his father, that he shouldn’t have brought the Wall back to the ramparts of Insomnia, that they couldn’t hold the outer regions without it. And when he had been ignored he had stolen half the military’s R&D team and got them to work on some way to target the Empire’s airships before they landed and began spewing out the new robot soldiers they had been developing.

They had still been arguing bitterly when the maids came into his room three days after his twenty third birthday and told him that the king had passed away sometime in the night. The Wall had only held because he had made some preparations earlier that week, preparations that Regis had dismissed as unnecessary.

“Not that old,” Nyx’s confident tone derailed his train of thought, “you don’t have grey hair.”

Regis grimaced, and for the first time since Nyx had met him, his face closed off, cold.

“The old king died. Almost a year ago.”

Understanding dawned on Nyx and he clutched tighter at Regis’ hand, and whispered, “my mum died too.”

“Nothing anyone says really makes it any better, does it,” Regis smiled sadly, rubbing circles in Nyx’s small hand with his thumb.

“No. It doesn’t.”

“Well then,” Regis let out a forceful breath, “let’s go get you cleaned up. And then you can finally get some sleep.”

Nyx nodded and wordlessly pressed himself into Regis’ side, until Regis picked him up and followed Cor to the tent that had been set up for him in anticipation of his arrival.


End file.
